Arthur Burrell (1859-1946) was an educationist, lecturer, author and historian who served as Principal of Borough Road Training College during the period when the seeds of its later excellence in athletics were sown. Among his varied endeavours he promoted the art of storytelling, deciphered the code in Anne Lister’s diaries, and adapted the Authorised Version of the Bible to a shortened form for children.
Birth and education
Born in Middlesex and brought up in Gloucestershire, he was a son of William Burrell, formerly a superintending surgeon in the East India Company’s service at Madras, by his second wife Adelaide Pierce. Educated at Dulwich College, he in 1878 obtained an open scholarship to Wadham College, Oxford, and graduated in 1881, having been placed in the second class of both parts of the Literae humaniores examination.
Early teaching appointments
In 1882 he obtained appointment as an assistant master at Bradford Grammar School, and in 1890 he became Senior Master of its Junior Department. The measure of his success in these roles was recognised in 1899 when, at the initiative of some of Bradford’s most prominent citizens, his departure from the school was marked by a dinner and substantial presentation to him. On this occasion the city’s mayor paid tribute to his having done “more for education in its very highest form - making boys love learning for learning’s own sake - than any of the other men who had ever been a leader in education in the city”. Among his pupils had been Sir William Rothenstein, who later recalled him as an “admirable master” who “won my whole-hearted devotion”.
Principal at Borough Road
He left Bradford on being appointed Principal of Borough Road Training College, a residential establishment preparing men for the teaching profession, in succession to H. L. Withers. Shortly after his appointment the college, which had recently relocated to Isleworth, was refused the status of a constituent school of the University of London notwithstanding that 80 of its 129 students were currently preparing for the university’s degree examinations. The refusal reflected official opinion that the college’s primary focus should be on preparation for elementary teaching, but five years later one in seven of the names on the university’s BA and BSc lists was that of a Borough Road graduate and the Board of Education accepted that higher study at the college was providing much needed intellectual stimulus for students of ability.
Against this background Burrell deplored the Board’s position whereby students failing their degree examination did not qualify for a Teacher’s Certificate despite having passed the professional part of the examination. This was one of several disagreements he had with the Board during a period when scrutiny and regulation of public education made consistent direction of teacher training especially challenging. During Burrell’s twelve years at Borough Road there were three major Consultative Committee reports, three Royal Commissions, several education circulars and Codes of Regulation, as well as the Education Act 1902.
Burrell himself had clear views on the proper content of elementary education, proposing at the British Association’s Annual Conference in 1906 that the curriculum of a primary school should omit a second language, all but elementary mathematics, all definite instruction in chemistry, and all higher grammar, and should make greater provision for physical work, tool work and geographical work.
He was deeply interested in the role of athletic exercise in the development of children and made engaging in physical training intrinsic to the culture of Borough Road. In 1905 he reported “We shall not do our duty by students (who, for the most part, come up physically untrained) until we see every single member of the College taking daily exercise. We are on the high road to this”. He was assisted in establishing this regime by Herbert Milnes, a tutor at the college and sportsman of some note who carried the cult of athleticism to Auckland Teachers’ Training College, of which he became head in 1906. Milnes was one of five principals supplied by Borough Road to training colleges in different parts of the world during Burrell’s term there.
Burrell resigned from Borough Road in 1912 in order, it was said, “to do missionary work to revive the art of story-telling”.